City crews begin utility work at Sandy Creek

The hole is progressing southward as Pratt City Water Department crews connect a new sewer line to the existing line on the Maple Street Extension.

The crews are now extending that line so it reaches into the lot that will, by the end of summer, become the first 16 lots available for building in the Sandy Creek addition, said Pratt City Manager Dave Howard.

Installing the line will take a little over a month to get all the lateral lines installed but that portion of the job should be completed in the early part of July.

"The toughest part of the job is tapping into the manhole on Maple Street," Howard said.

The city will meet with the contractor in a couple of weeks to discuss the development of the addition.

After the sewer line is complete, the city will continue installing the other utilities of water and electricity. The water lines should take much less time than the sewer lines because the water lines are at a much shallower depth than the sewer lines, Howard said.

The deeper the crews have to dig the more dirt they have to move and the more time it takes.

Depending on the weather, the crews hope to have the utilities completed by the end of July or around the first of August. Once they are in, a lot of work still has to be done before the end of summer.

The only utility the city will not install is the gas lines and Kansas Gas Company will make the connections and run the lines for that job.

Once the utilities are complete, the contractor will move in and the entire Sandy Creek Addition will have a mass grading that will reveal the actual physical landscape of the entire addition. It proved to be most efficient to do grade the entire lot at one time, Howard said.

In addition to the utilities in the 16-lot area, crews will also install curbs, gutters and storm drains.

The entire project is scheduled for completion by the end of summer, depending on the weather.

When the sewer line work in the 16-lot area is finished, the crews will extend the sewer line along Maple Street to the east to a point where it will eventually connect with the proposed Hampton Inn that will be located on the south side of Maple Street across from the First Southern Baptist Church, Howard said.

The lots will extend back about 1,000 feet and the cost is expected at $30,000 per lot. Exactly how the sale of the lots will be handled is still being worked out.

"We're still working on how the sale of the lots will be orchestrated," Howard said. "These are good sized lots and hopefully they will attract builders. There has been a lot of interest."

The Maple Street Addition was completed two years ago. The city had no open lots where people could build homes and the Sandy Creek Addition was designed to give homebuilders an option in town.

While no one has committed to building a house on Sandy Creek, many people have expressed interest in the area over the years, Howard said.

The 16-lot area covers about one-third of the available site. Further lot development will depend on how well the first lots sell.

A beautification fence is planned on the south side of the property to block the view of the industrial area.

Also planned for the area is a walking trail along the creek bed. Those plans are still in the discussion phase. They were in the original plans but are not on the front burner yet, Howard said.